Working Overtime

While the rest of the team enjoys a week off, Mathew Leckie and Marvin Plattenhardt are completing a rigorous training programme. The pair is expected to be reintroduced to team training next week.

Deep breath, steady, and shoot – a process every footballer is familiar with. On Wednesday the 24th July, however, Marvin Plattenhardt and Mathew Leckie were putting this into practice on the golf course, under the instructions of fitness coach Hendrik Vieth, who has decided to mix things up for the two World Cup participants this week, while the rest of their team enjoys some time off.

"They’ve both done their homework, so they’ve both returned from their holiday at a good level of fitness," said Hendrik Vieth, who stayed in Berlin to train with the pair: "We’ve already been able to work on sprinting and other intense movements," he added. This has been clear to see for anyone present at Schenckendorffplatz this week, who will have seen ‘Lecks’ and ‘Platte’ putting in the hours, running up and down, left to right, day in day out, tirelessly, and willingly: "The holiday and the time away from football was good, but now I’m glad to be back here. I feel good and I want to quickly get to the level that everyone else is at," said Leckie.